Surviving the Rapture again

Saturday, October 22, 2011

By DAVID WARGO dont'blink2003@hotmail.com

If you are reading this with your cup of coffee or bowl of cereal, then one of two things have occurred. Either you missed the rapture yesterday and you are one of those remaining behind for the fiery conclusion, or Harold Camping is racking his brain to figure out why the Apocalypse let him down twice in one year.

Yesterday was October 21st, the date marking the second opportunity for the Rapture to occur according to Harold Camping who so far is 0-3 a score that is good for us, but not so good for his powers of prophecy.

Remember back five months ago when the news was covered with stories about the end of days. Probably not. Well, Camping said he miscalculated at that point and it was only the beginning of the rapture, some sort of cosmic salvation cut-off date.

It strikes me as quite funny that the almighty, all-knowing Creator requires five months of notice to accommodate taking those who believe in him away from this planet. That sounds quite a bit like trying to humanize God which usually is an exercise in futility. I'm not quite certain he needs five months. Now, if instead we are a science experiment of some alien race, then maybe it makes sense that they would need five months to assemble the saucer fleet to come and fetch us. Don't laugh. It's as likely as Camping's Rapture version 4.0.

One place that probably hasn't cleared out yet is New York City's Zuccotti Park. Protestors there have reached the one-month mark in their quest to allegedly avenge the rich on behalf of the common folk. Whether they are right or wrong is for each of you to individually decide, but I have wondered about some things related to this "occupation".

Do they have snow shovels and can they build an igloo when winter comes or are they just going to fair-weather protest when the weather finally turns?

They are carrying signs demanding the wealth of the one percent who are oppressing them and basically sanctioning seizing their funds, yet they are upset when some unfortunate souls apparently needed help and stole money, computers and phones from the protestors who have confused the self-centered 21st century with the romanticized summer of love where crime allegedly didn't exist. So on one hand, they have no qualms taking from others, but they are rightfully upset when someone steals from them.

They have organized occupations in the financial districts of many major cities throughout the United States, yet there is no large amount of publicity about any major protest in the one city that controls the institutions and industries about whom they protest. Yes, where is the government protests of Washington politicians? It is suspiciously low-key.

President Barack Obama is traipsing around the company doing a poor job of hiding his campaigning with so-called attempts to drum up grass roots support of his "jobs" bill/stimulus package part three, and yet we fail to see any major protests at his speeches. Does that strike you as odd?

How does a leaderless protest manage to create a website and organize a worldwide protest without anyone in charge? That is what they want all of us to believe. The truth is we are seeing idealistic people with the best of intentions who want to eliminate corruption in office being used by power brokers and con artists of the worst kind. Those in positions of power who want to obfuscate and protect the true problem because to attack the real problem is to kill the goose which lays the golden eggs.

Who is the culprit that created this mess to begin with?

Is it the power brokers on Wall Street who have some culpability for using their wealth to advance their own ends in some cases to the detriment of others? Just having wealth is not a criterion for vilifying them. Those who have used their wealth to leverage those in power definitely deserve backlash if they have taken immoral and amoral actions to keep or accumulate their wealth.

Is it the corruption rampant in the government that has created this mess? After all it is politicians who make the laws and they are the ones who have looked the other way or created legislation to cater to those who provided influence to them. Time and again, we have all seen proof of politicians trading votes for consideration of financial gain and other benefits which much of the time have come from the wealthy, the corporations and the greedy power brokers in this country. To save this country, we must make sure our leaders learn how to say "NO!" and stop being influenced by greed and self-benefits, but even they are not the true culprits.

No, the true culprit is one we have discussed several times. What we are seeing is the outcome of true voter apathy. Voter apathy created and environment of self-grandeur among our elected officials and led them to believe that no matter what they do, the people will forget and leave them alone to continue along their merry way. As time passed, they felt more empowered to bend and twist to the whims of those with money and influence and created laws to benefit those who lobbied them at the expense of the people. Over time they brought us to this place where our country feels like it is falling apart. This could have been avoided if people didn't vote for parties like machines and paid attention.

Now maybe people will pay attention and vote or maybe we just hang up the flag and call it a day. I sure hope the former solution prevails.